Orange cap, black dots on stem

My favourite!

Another message from Russia, this time from around the far north:

"We went to forested tundra yesterday, found some mushrooms. Only took young caps of red mushrooms, none of the brown kind, because the browns turn all soggy and mushy very quickly. In the end, didn't manage to fully load the helicopter, brought home just a couple of buckets each."

This, people, is how mushrooms are collected around Noviy Urengoy. It is one of the major oil-producing areas in Russia, in case you were wondering about the helicopter. There is no shortage of these flying machines there, and that's right, if you are high enough in the pecking order, you can take one to get you to fungi.

The "red mushrooms" are orange birch boletes, which that far north are coloured so brightly that they rival fly agarics, and the "browns" are their close cousins, brown birch boletes.

Orange birch bolete is, in my opinion, one of the finest mushrooms you can find in the forest. Its taste and texture are superior to the cep, and it only loses in the competition for the title of the king mushroom because it is somewhat toxic in its raw state, and it turns black when dried or frozen.

Otherwise, it is an excellent edible mushroom, and due to its firm texture it can be cooked in a variety of ways: fried, stewed and even barbecued. Sadly, in lower latitudes they are not nearly as abundant as ceps, so each find is special, like the one in the photo that I snapped on a recent trip to Scottish Highlands.

Just look at it. Utterly adorable!